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12 Survival Smartphone Apps | Preparedness

In this day and age, It is said there are smartphone apps for solving just about any problem you may encounter. Just download, install, and you have the essential apps to survive the unexpected.

Smartphone Apps: Using Technology To Your Advantage

A couple of years ago, we posted an article on how to use your smartphone or cellphone as a survival tool. It showed how a broken or dead phone can help you survive. Just a few months back, we proved even a perfectly working phone has the capability to save your life in the most extreme SHTF situations, where there is absolutely nothing else you have on your person at the time. Here are just a few examples.

1. Smartphone Apps for Illumination: Flashlight

One of the most basic needs for survival is having a flashlight. And like most smartphones, you can download “Flashlight” and Brightest Flashlight for Iphone, Ipad, iPod and Android respectively. It’s as good as any modern flashlight!

2. Military Smartphone Apps: U.S. Army Survival Guide

Hesitant to go out in the wilderness because of lack of knowledge? Well, the 1,400-page US Army Survival Guide app will tell you what you need to know and learn. This app will show you how to navigate if you get lost, build shelter, and treat an injury. Just make sure you have enough battery to go a long way. Links: Apple iTunes.

3. Must-have Smartphone Apps: American Red Cross First Aid

Getting injured in the wild is no laughing matter. It could be a matter of life and death. The American Red Cross’s First Aid app gives the user an extensive collection of first aid procedures that can be looked up using your phone. This will give you first aid knowledge such as burns, fevers, heart attacks, and broken bones.

4. Dropbox: Smartphone Apps for Document Safekeeping

One very important part of a disaster kit is your documents such as birth certificates, IDs, alternate routes, etc. Having a hardcopy is good but having a softcopy in your phone is smart. The Dropbox mobile app will do just that!

5. BootPrint Pocket Survival: The Signal Finder of Smartphone Apps

With this app, you wouldn’t have to worry about climbing a tree or move around in search of a signal. It will show you the exact location where your phone had last got a signal. You can even use a compass on your phone so you wouldn’t have to search through the map.

6. Smartphone Apps for Foraging: Wild Edibles App

Do you want to forage like Steve “Wildman” Brill? This is the app for you! The Wild Edibles app provides as much as 8 various images of over 200 wild plants you can locate, identify, harvest, and prepare so you wouldn’t end up killing yourself or getting sick.

7. Prepper Smartphone Apps: The SAS Survival Guide

This app helps you identify safe edible plants and those that aren’t. With 400 pages on survival basics such as where you can find water or how to start a fire to identifying animal tracks and stalking them. This is a great app straight from Brit’s version of Seals!

8. Smartphone Apps for Monitoring: Emergency Radio

In an emergency situation, it pays to be updated in whatever disaster or emergency your area is in. A bush fire, a hurricane, a police pursuit in the highway you’re driving in, and even traffic. This way you get to prepare and anticipate your next move by listening to the emergency radio app.

9. The Homing Device of Smartphone Apps: Guardly Mobile Safety App

In the event you can’t make a call, this app can relay your real-time GPS location and send them to the police or to pre-listed people you want to notify in case of a dire emergency. The app can also send out an extremely loud whistle to determine your location should they be in the area. You will need an internet connection though in order for this app to work. Still, it will keep trying to do so until it gets a connection.

Downloading an offline map in Google Maps for a region you’re headed to will do wonders for you. You can see your exact location using GPS even without a mobile signal. Here are the steps to do it:

Search for your destination

Drag out until you have a view of the whole area

Flick bar at the bottom and choose “Save map to use offline”

11. Smartphone Apps vs Wild: Bear Essentials

Do you want an app that has been tried and tested by an actual survivor? An earthquake survivor in Haiti used this app which contained a compilation of information from ex-British special forces Bear Grylls. He must’ve been truly glad he downloaded this one when it happened!

12. Proclivus: Knowledgebase of Smartphone Apps

You can have so many apps in your phone that’ll help you with almost every survival or emergency situation you can think of. Proclivus can ease up your jumping of one app to another because it is a compilation of the best survival information you can find on the web. And you don’t have to pay anything to get it!

13. Knots 3D App

Learn a step-by-step process on how to tie more than 80 different types of knots in incredible detail! Since it’s 3 dimensional, you can twist the knots to know how it looks like from different angles. A great way to familiarize yourself by working on the it on your phone too!

Living Survival shows a video of the 25 survival & preparedness apps for iPhone or Android:

With the advancement of technology and constant discoveries of other new ones almost on a daily basis, there’s just so much you can have on your smartphone! If you like to go hiking or outdoors, choose the ones you think you need most based on your location and lifestyle. No one wants to be in a survival situation, it is best to be prepared than regret not having it if it happens.

What do you think about this list of smartphone survival apps? Let us know in the comments below!

You can buy fairly cheap hand cranked and solar powered radios that will also charge your phone. So if you build some redundancy in your survival system i.e. multiple ways to charge up in an emergency, then yes. Your phone will work.

Most Apps are compatible on both platforms (yay capitalism!). It’s simply the perception that iPhone has a larger grasp on the mobile market that lends to them being in product demos. They are also known for their minimalist design, and no branding on the front display/casing, making them ideal for companies that do not wish to simultaneously plug a tech giant. I have an android powered phone (HTC One M8) and it works quite well with a few of these apps (others I have not tried). Give it a go and see how it works for you!

Remember that conserving battery life and functionality without internet access is key in an emergency or survival situation. I would not recommend your cellphone as a flashlight for survival. It will run your battery down quickly. Battery power that could otherwise be used for texting loved ones or reading Survival resources, etc. Not to mention, why risk exposing your $500+ device to higher risk for damage or loss. Carry an EDC flashlight instead, only adds a few ounces to your pocket or purse. It gives better brightness, throw, and runtime.

Dropbox is a great tool to keep your resources available on your device but remember to select the “make available offline“ option for each file to be sure it is accessible when internet connectivity is unavailable. OneDrive offers a similar feature.

Trackbacks

[…] In our current modern society, a smart phone can be a great survival tool for communication, but there are also many apps that have been created to help out survivalists. Compass apps and Google maps can help with navigation. There are also several apps containing various guides for first aid, foraging, and SAS-style survival. For a complete list of apps that can help during a disaster, click here:: 12 Survival Smartphone Apps […]

[…] Technology and survivalists have come a long way in creating independent sustainable lifestyles. Since feelings developed that our government leaders were not working in our interests, savvy people began exploring ways to become independent from bureaucracies and political domination. Many wanted to just be left alone to live their lives free of draconian restrictions and oppression. They admired the Amish and Mennonite communities who dedicated their lives to living off the grid and operating independent of government influence and direction. […]

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